A wire tracer is an instruments that is capable of tracing wires, locating circuit breakers, finding faults and open-circuited and short-circuited wires. Wires are usually enclosed within a structure. It is difficult at time to tell their position. A number of electrical conductors are frequently routed through structures which hide the conductors from view and from accessibility. For example, a business has telephone, data and electrical wiring generally located behind the wall. The reason behind locating the wall within the structure is both aesthetic and safety. For the former, the buried line does not disrupt or deter from the appearance of business. For the latter, the interaction that could occur between the wiring and the employees is minimized.
Similarly, in industrial installations, electrical wiring is frequently bundled and positioned in such a way that there is as minimal contact with the wiring as possible. Industrial lines usually carry a significant amount more voltage than found in either homes or small businesses. Burying the cable within the structure substantially decreases the potential of any contact with the lines.
In such installations, individual conductors can, therefore, be difficult to test. This is because the technician cannot readily see the conductor. Without going into the actual wall, the location and path of the conductor can be very difficult to assess and repair. The conductor can also be difficult to test because a specific conductor is difficult to isolate in a large number of conductors due the similarity of appearance between all the conductors. In these situations, the route of a specific conductor cannot be readily ascertained by visual tracing.
As a result of the difficulty of tracing or isolating wires in walls or other conduits, or in a large bundle of similar wires, line or wire tracing devices have arisen as one possible solution in tracing embedded wires. Wire tracing devices generally include a transmitter for transmitting an electromagnetic signal along a wire to be analyzed. A receiver for wirelessly detecting the signal is positioned at another location along the length of the wire.
The electromagnetic signal is preferably a distinct modulated signal. The receiver acts as an antenna, receiving and supplying an indication of the captured signal.
There are many different existing types of wire tracers currently in existence. Previous models were produced only with a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter generated a 17 kHz signal and the receiver is tuned to pick up the 17 kHZ signal. This specific model could only detect an energized circuit up to 300 volts and non-energized circuits. The problem with this model is that the transmitted signal is usually only able to be detected no more than three feet away from the transmitter.
In other equipment, the models can only trace energized lines at lower levels or only non-energized lines. These models cannot detect a combination of both an energized line and a nonenergized line.
These previous devices were designed for professionals with deep knowledge in electronics and communication. The testing procedures can be a challenge for an less experienced technician. This is evidenced by the number of technical calls received by vendors of these devices.
Another problem with the current devices are their reliability. The devices on the market today are less then ninety-percent reliable. This is a fairly high rate of error in this particular field which can result in higher repair costs.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus that is able to permit that user to use a single device to determine whether the line is energized, the voltage and the condition. It is further desired to have a device with a low margin of error and is able to detect a reflected signal from an acceptable distance away from the generation of reflected signal.